


True Innocence

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Angry Kissing, F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Partners to Lovers, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 11:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: He catches her looking. She 100% doesn't care, and it was pretty much inevitable. How could she not look, when he's hobbling at speed for the elevator with one hand pointlessly—entirely pointlessly—clenched over the ragged flap that used to be the back pocket of his ridiculously expensive jeans?





	True Innocence

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: An insert for “Wrapped up in Death” (2 x 19), because Cora Clavia is a bad, bad person. 

 

Whoever blushes is already guilty;

true innocence is ashamed of nothing.

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

* * *

 

He catches her looking. She 100% doesn't care, and it was pretty much inevitable. How could she _not_ look, when he's hobbling at speed for the elevator with one hand pointlessly— _entirely_ pointlessly—clenched over the ragged flap that used to be the back pocket of his ridiculously expensive jeans? 

How could she not look when _everyone_ is looking? When the whole damned bullpen is cat-calling and wolf-whistling and ogling.  She, at least, has confined herself to the relative dignity of a side lean. A lift of the eyebrows, that’s all, so she totally doesn't care that he catches her.

Except he catches _only_ her. With plainclothes and uniforms and civilians crowding the rapidly closing doors of the elevator, he catches _her_ looking, and her alone. 

And he blushes. His eyes find hers immediately. Unerringly. His breath catches. A quick rise and fall of his chest, and he _blushes._

The doors bump closed on the strange little moment between them. It ends, and she tells herself she absolutely doesn't care that he caught her. 

She _doesn’t_ care. Except he was blushing.

 

* * *

  

She's not really up for Serious Castle. Nothing on her board leads to anything else. This case is getting on her last nerve, and she is just _not_ up for him being weird and quiet and giving her the side eye. She’s not up for him _hovering_ and not just saying whatever it is he’s _not_ saying. 

“What?” she finally snaps, even though she doesn’t want to know. She’s suddenly, _absolutely_ sure of that, but the question is already out of her mouth. 

“Nothing,” he mumbles. 

 His gaze shifts away hard, and she’s relieved, right? It puts the brakes on this stupid thing that’s been unfolding all day. Unfolding since he caught her staring, and putting the brakes on is just exactly fine with her, because she’s not up for Serious Castle at all. 

“Castle.” 

She’s not sure where it comes from at first. His name. It genuinely takes her a beat and a half to realize it’s her own voice. Sharp, still. Impatient, but quiet. Intimate, right there at the board, and that’s exactly what she didn’t want. Exactly what she’s not at all up for, but the words are spilling out of him now, like she’s ripped a silver strip of duct tape off his mouth, and _there’s_ an image. 

“If something were to happen to me, I want you to watch out for Alexis. She looks up to you . . .” 

He says something stupid then. Of course he does. Something about shooting his kid’s boyfriends that makes her want to roll her eyes, except she’s way too caught up in the first part. 

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”  

She’s surprised at the ferocity of it. The low intensity of her own voice, and the fact that she _means_ it. She hears _his_ voice suddenly, ringing out, panicked, in the confines of her own head. 

_Kate! Are you in there? Kate!_

She thinks about him running into a burning building—a building he’d just watched _explode_ —and the strength of his arm around her as he helped her hobble out of it.  She knows he’d do it again. That he _has_ done it, over and over again, and somehow she’s never thought about after. She’s never thought about _what if . . ._ His mother. Her father. His daughter, younger even than she was . . .   

She’s really never thought about it, and how stupid is that for a damned cop? She feels the weight of it settle on her. This . . . partnership.  

“But if it does . . .” 

He looks her in the eye. It’s not the second time that day. Not _just_ the second time, surely, but she feels her own cheeks color. She feels warmth rising in them, and it’s too much on top of the stupid moment from before. Too much that staring at his ass comes with baggage like this.  

“Okay.” 

Air rushes out of him. A sigh of relief. They’re close enough that she can see the tight lines relax around his eyes. His mouth, and, well . . . that’s a problem. A sudden problem as one kind of tension gives way to another. High anxiety rolling out and leaving behind a low, thrumming energy that’s the same as always and not the same at all. It’s nothing like the same. 

She doesn’t know what will happen next. The world feels like it’s tilting, and that’s _such_ a distant memory. It comes with this incredible rush of sense memory from years ago. Taking her bike far outside the city and opening the throttle all the way. Hardly easing off at all, even around the blind curves. She hardly recognizes herself, then or now. She has _no idea_ what happens next, and she’s breathless with it. 

“And would you also go into my closet and get rid of my porn collection before she finds it?”

A jackass comment, and she lands with a bump back in the way things are. The way things always go, and she wants to tear her hair out. She wants to tear _his_ hair out, but Esposito’s right there, because _of course_ he fucking is. Because that’s the way this always fucking goes. 

 “Don't worry, bro. I got you covered on that.” 

He knows something’s wrong. Castle knows. Not Esposito. Definitely not Ryan, who’s telling her something that’s probably important. Neither of those two ever knows a damned thing, and she should probably be grateful for that. She should probably be grateful that it’s just their fucking Wonder Twin power that has them barging in with absolutely unerring timing.  But Castle knows. He’s brittle and fidgeting as he follows along. As he manages to take in whatever it is that the boys are going on about. 

He’s straight-spined and square-shouldered with tension as he follows her out of the bullpen toward interrogation. He’s _annoyed,_ she realizes, and it ratchets up her own fury. What fucking right does _he_ have to be annoyed when he’s the one pulling a bait and switch on her. Looking at her like that. Asking her and making her own up to how terrifying this thing is, day after day, and what fucking _right_ does he . . . 

She stops short. She whirls toward him. They collide. 

“Beckett!” He snaps at her. His hand comes up to steady her shoulder, and her fingers close around his wrist like a vice. They’re toe-to-toe in the one dim, remotely quiet stretch of hallway on the whole damned floor. 

“Why do you do that?” she hisses. “Why are you _always_ a jackass right after . . . right when . . “ 

She breaks off, stammering with rage. She’s not even sure what she’s asking. Not sure at all how she even meant to finish the question, so it’s more than a little mean the way she tightens her grip to shut up him. To keep him from some stupid, blank-faced question, but he surprises her. Shocks the hell out of her, actually, when he leans right in her face.  

“Are you really asking?” The difference in their heights is practically imaginary anyway. Practically nothing when she’s in her heels, but the sudden move erases even that distance. “Really, Beckett?”  

“I’m asking.” 

Her voice is rock steady. She’s looking him dead in the eye and he’s looking right back. He nods to himself. To her, in a sharp gesture, and then he’s kissing her. Clumsily, angrily, tooth-bangingly kissing her, then making up for it. A soft apology, fleeting, then something softer still. Something hungry and sincere and long overdue that pulls her in. 

“That’s why.”  

The words are sloppy. Smeared by the fact that he’s tearing his mouth away from hers. By the fact that _tearing_ is exactly the right word for it, and he’s panting a little. She’s panting. 

“So,” he says. The flash of hard, angry confidence—of certainty—dissolves right before her eyes. It washes out and nerves wash right back in. His voice is anything but steady. “So. Do I say something stupid now?”  

It’s a legitimate question. A _real_ question. He’s blushing.

“Probably.” 

She laughs. Her gaze drops and she sees her fingers curled around the lapels of his jacket. It’s not the one he was wearing then. It doesn’t smell like smoke rising up from the ashes of her life. It’s the same color, that’s all, but it does smell of smoke just the same. It smells like weight and the memory of every time they've saved each othe. She tugs him toward her. Tugs herself toward him and feels the heat just beneath the surface of his skin. 

“Do _you_ say something stupid, Castle? Eventually. Definitely.” She lets him go. Pushes him back with the flat of her palm even as she skates her lips over his. An afterthought of a kiss, but very definitely a kiss. “But not right now.”  

“Not right now,” he agrees, catching her fingers at the last second. Chafing his thumb over her  knuckles. Following an impulse, he ducks his head. He presses the cool of her skin to the warmth of his cheek. “Good.” 


End file.
